Christmas at the Little Waffle Shack - Helen J. Rolfe Page 0,80

something so good there that I spent every waking moment I could out of this house and with him and Melissa. Mum never minded but I think that was before she realised the damage it was doing to you. To us.’

Harvey was spot on with that. ‘I felt as though you didn’t care anymore,’ Daniel admitted. ‘And the less I saw of you, the more trouble I got into. I don’t know why I did it. It wasn’t like I wanted attention; I think I wanted something to change.’

‘I wish I’d been around to help more. Or insisted you came to Barney’s with me.’

Daniel had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. ‘You used to ask me to go.’

‘I did.’

He’d forgotten. All this time he’d blocked it out, thinking his brother had turned his back when Harvey had actually tried. He’d just been too pig-headed to let him in. ‘Why didn’t I go with you?’

‘I’ve no idea. You said no so many times I stopped asking. Maybe I didn’t make going to a man’s barn to hang out and pick apples sound appealing enough. But I did try.’

‘I think I was jealous.’

‘Jealous?’

‘You came home happy. You didn’t have to say anything but even as you washed dishes or did your chores there was something different about you. I wanted that too, but I wanted to find it myself. I guess I was torn between wanting you to help me and wanting to help myself. You were my older brother but I wanted to be like you. I wanted to man up and stand on my own two feet. God knows Dad told me often enough that I never would.’

‘He told me I wouldn’t either.’

‘Bastard.’ Daniel swigged his beer.

‘I still felt responsible for you. I did back then, I have over the years right up until you came back into town. It wasn’t just embarrassment that all the trouble you caused made me look bad, it was that I felt bad. Does that make sense?’

‘You shouldn’t feel that way. Brothers don’t have to oversee each other’s lives to the extent they control the other one – even healthy relationships don’t work that way. I had my own mind and I had to make my own mistakes. Our biggest fault was not hearing each other out; letting Dad’s years of neglect and misery shape our lives rather than fighting back.’

‘I don’t think I had the energy back then.’

‘Me neither.’ He looked at Harvey. ‘Can I say the unthinkable?’

‘You’re glad he’s gone.’

Daniel tore at the label on his glass bottle, ripped it enough that the brand name was distorted.

‘Can I address the other elephant in the room?’ Harvey asked.

‘The drink-driving charge.’ Daniel put his beer bottle down on the floor beside his chair as though it was at odds with what he needed to say. He’d known this question was coming. ‘It happened a few years back. I was visiting and cooking up a storm in the kitchen at Giselle’s place, treating her to a recipe I’d picked up from a chef friend. She was always a big fan of lobster and, being a single mum, didn’t exactly splash out on food so I picked some up on the cheap and showed up to cook it for her. I put Peter to bed, read him one of his favourite stories from his collection of Thomas the Tank Engine books, and then Giselle and I sat, ate and enjoyed some wine – a lot of wine in Giselle’s case, not quite so much in mine but enough that I wasn’t sober.

‘We finished eating, carried on drinking and played a few games of cards. We must’ve been loud and Peter came downstairs to see what was going on – he hated missing out – but he tripped and when he fell he smashed his head on the radiator against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. There was blood everywhere, so much blood, he was screaming, Giselle was screaming. I couldn’t get reception on my phone to call an ambulance – Giselle had moved out to a village by then and the coverage was shocking. I ran outside but had no luck with that either and so calling an ambulance was impossible. We tried knocking on a couple of neighbouring doors but couldn’t get hold of anyone. Giselle was pressing a tea towel against Peter’s head to stop the blood, he was slipping in and out of consciousness and in a split-second